I didn't leave my abuser until I was ready, and then I never looked back.My marriage ended because my husband was an abuser, and after nearly five years of living together, I was reasonably certain one of us was about to end up dead.
I was hoping it wouldn't be me.
When I was nearing the end of my ill-fated relationship, I met a police officer through my employer. In addition to working on the local police force, he was a small business owner. The business he owned was adjacent to the place where I worked. So I saw him often.
Although I wouldn't characterize our relationship as friends, we did become friendly. Eventually, I confided in him about my situation at home. I thought if anyone would lend a sympathetic ear, it would be a police officer. I was wrong.
"If you tell me he hit you again, I'm going to come to your house and beat the sh*t out of you," he said.
"What?" I asked. I was positive that I had heard him incorrectly, or that he had misspoken. "Don't you mean you'll beat the sh*t out of him?"
"No," he replied. "I will beat the sh*t out of you for being stupid. If you don't leave him, then you deserve it."
He told me if I didn't want to be in an abusive marriage, then I needed to leave my abusive marriage. For him, the answer was simple. In theory, I suppose it was. In reality, though, things are always a lot more complicated.
I know that victim-shaming is a thing, a dangerous thing. I know that blaming the victim is always wrong. I know that it wasn't my fault I was being abused - but did he have a point about leaving being my responsibility? There was only one way out of my abusive relationship, and I wasn't taking it. That was a problem. Nobody was going to save me if I didn't save myself. Nobody.
This police officer described the many scenes of domestic violence he'd seen over the years in the line of duty. He explained about defensive wounds and how women who are being stabbed to death often have their fingers sliced off as they try to shield their face and body with their outstretched hands.
He described dead women lying lifeless in puddles of blood with their faces unrecognizable, and their crying babies lying hungry and soiled in their bassinets waiting for their dead mothers to come feed and change them.
The officer talked about what it was like to knock on someone's door to let them know their daughter had been found dead, and the suspect was her husband, " - and your grandchildren have been picked up by child protective custody."
He told me that he would knock on my parents' door and tell them I was too dumb to leave my husband until I was carried out in a body bag with my severed fingers on the side. And it made me angry. I realize now that the police officer was trying to use a tough-love approach to get me to leave a bad situation, and I'm grateful.
At the time, I couldn't believe he would speak to me that way. How dare a man tell me I deserved to be beaten and murdered for not having the smarts to leave the man who beat me and threatened to murder me - and then I went home to my husband, and he hit me again.
And I didn't tell the police officer because he already thought I deserved it. I didn't really think he would beat me like he said he would, but I didn't want to take any chances.
